Nov. 08--Beat #0711, 10:50 p.m. Nov. 7
A man in a Pittsburgh Pirates ballcap ran into the bar on 59th Street late Saturday night screaming that someone had been shot.
Bar-goers went outside to see if it was true; across the street, they could see a shiny black Lexus with a shattered window and a man with a gunshot wound to the head.
"You're gonna have to find someplace else to be," a police officer told them as the man was loaded into an ambulance. He would be taken to Stroger Hospital and pronounced dead.
"Man, it happened so fast," said a man who was visiting from St. Louis. He missed witnessing the shooting by moments; he said he had just walked back into the bar when word got out.
A woman leaned out from the bar's front door, calling him over: "I ain't come to Chicago to witness this ....," she yelled.
"I' gonna go back in and drink," said the man.
Most of the people outside had the same idea. So did a few new faces who ducked under the crime scene tape to get into the bar, a brick building painted white without a name posted outside or any apparent sign that you could walk in and have a drink.
People cycled in and out of the doorway, watching police and trying to sort out what happened.
"They shot the guy in the head," said a woman into a pink cellphone. "I don't even know. I ain't hear the shots. Chicago, folks!"
"You buying me a drink?" she asked one man who had walked past the red police tape and into the bar. "I lost all my business, you better buy me a drink."
A man in a Chicago Bulls cap leaned out of the door to flag down an officer. "I respect this crime scene, but this is Englewood, and I've got $8,000 worth of power tools in that truck," he said, pointing in front of him. The officer assured him they'd keep an eye on it, and the man smiled.
"Next time I see you, I'm gonna buy you a pierogi," he said.
